The Glory Of Southern Cooking: Recipes for the Best Beer-Battered Fried Chicken, Cracklin' Biscuits,Carolina Pulled Pork, Fried Okra, Kentucky Cheese

By James Villas

The definitive Southern cookbook from renowned food writer James Villas

From James Villas comes this definitive Southern cookbook, featuring fascinating Southern lore, cooking tips, and 388 glorious recipes for any occasion. It includes traditional favorites, delicious regional specialties, and new recipes from some of the South's most famous and innovative chefs, like Louis Osteen and Paul Prudhomme.

Comprehensive and authoritative, the book features favorites like buttermilk biscuits, fried chicken, grits, cornbread, and pecan pie. Plus, Villas includes colorful stories, anecdotes, and Southern lore throughout the book, adding the kind of local color and charm you'd only get in the South and only from a writer like Villas.

• Includes delicious and authentic Southern recipes for everything from cocktail and tea foods to main courses and desserts
• Features lists of ingredients, equipment, and Southern terms non-natives will want to know
• Written by James Villas, proud North Carolina native, and author of Pig and From the Ground Up

All across the South, from Maryland to Louisiana and everywhere in between, food is culture. Dig into it with James Villas and enjoy The Glory of Southern Cooking for yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Mar 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9780544186569

James Villas

JAMES VILLAS’s work has appeared in Esquire, Food & Wine, Gourmet, Bon Appétit, and the New York Times. He won James Beard Awards for Journalism in 2003 and for Pig: King of the Southern Table.

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Cocktail & Tea Foods

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Pimento Cheese Spread

Kentucky Beer Cheese

Basil-Avocado Cheese Spread

Jezebel

Shrimp Paste with Gin

Pearl’s Chicken Liver Spread

Chilled Country Ham Mousse

Spinach and Water Chestnut Dip

Hot Shrimp and Crab Dip

Shrimp Deviled Eggs

Cajun Popcorn with Garlic Mayonnaise

Deviled Crabmeat Balls

Glazed Chicken Wings with Blue Cheese Dip

Sausage-Stuffed Mushrooms

Country Ham and Broccoli Tartlets

Blue Cheese Straws

Benne Bits

Pecan-Cheese Biscuits

Shrimp Toast

Cocktail Orange Pecans

Fried Dill Pickles

Vicksburg Tomato Sandwiches

Pimento Cheese Spread

Makes about 3 cups

Ruth, honey, bawls Hoppin’ John Martin Taylor over the phone to Ruth Fales at the Pinckney Cafe in Charleston, South Carolina. I’m sending two hungry friends over for pamenuh cheese sandwiches, so pile it on heavy. Of course, every Southerner thinks he or she knows what constitutes perfect pimento cheese, and even the few non-Southerners who know what the spread is can have a very resolute idea of how it should be made. In the South, PC is used for sandwiches, turned into dips and festive balls, and incorporated in burgers and breads, but never is it more popular than when spread on crackers or stuffed into celery for cocktail parties. While self-styled experts add everything to it from minced onion, garlic, hot peppers, and olives to horseradish and Tabasco, I say there’s still nothing like the simple, classic PC that I make at least once a week and keep in the refrigerator. Without question, it’s the most distinctive and sensual of all Southern spreads.

¹⁄2 pound extra-sharp white Vermont cheddar cheese

¹⁄2 pound extra-sharp New York State cheddar cheese

One 7-ounce jar pimentos, drained

¹⁄2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Salt to taste

Cayenne pepper to taste

²⁄3 cup mayonnaise

Finely grate the two cheeses into a mixing bowl. On a plate, mash the pimentos well with a fork till they’re very pulpy. Add them to the cheeses along with the pepper, salt, and cayenne, and mix till well blended. Using a fork, fold in the mayonnaise and mash till the spread is smooth, adding a little more mayonnaise if it appears too dry.

Scrape the spread into a jar or crock, cover well, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving with crackers or using to make pimento cheese finger sandwiches. Keeps up to 1 week tightly covered in the refrigerator.

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Contrary to what most people think, the large, red, heart-shaped pimento pepper that plays such an important role in Southern cooking is not the same as its humbler cousin, the red bell pepper. (Pimentos are indigenous to the Americas and were taken back to Spain by Columbus.) Today, virtually all pimentos are canned in the states of Georgia and Tennessee, making them available nationwide.

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Kentucky Beer Cheese

Makes about 2¹⁄2 cups

Legend has it that this addictive spread/dip was created about a century ago in a Louisville saloon and served with crackers to any customer ordering a five-cent lager. Today in Kentucky, there are as many varieties of beer cheese as hot browns, some spread on crusty bread, crackers, and rye rounds, others used as dips for raw vegetable sticks. It can be made with all cheddar or a combination of cheeses, and each host or hostess has his or her favorite (and secret) seasonings. Since beer cheese keeps well, covered, in the refrigerator for up to a week, I usually make it (like Pimento Cheese Spread, opposite) in large quantities, ready to serve at last-minute cocktail get-togethers or teas.

¹⁄2 pound extra-sharp aged cheddar cheese

One 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature

1 garlic clove, minced

1 tablespoon minced fresh chives

¹⁄2 teaspoon dry mustard

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Tabasco sauce to taste

¹⁄4 teaspoon salt

1 cup lager beer

Shred the cheddar finely into a large mixing bowl, add the cream cheese, and mash with a fork till well blended. Add the garlic, chives, dry mustard, Worcestershire, Tabasco, and salt and beat with an electric mixer till well blended. Gradually add the beer, beating till the spread is smooth. (To transform the spread into a dip, beat in about ¹⁄4 cup more beer.) Scrape into a crock, cover tightly, and chill overnight.

Serve the spread with toast points, crackers, or rye rounds (or as a dip, with raw vegetable sticks).

Basil-Avocado Cheese Spread

Makes about 2 cups

I have two friends in St. Petersburg, Florida, who love fresh basil so much that they grow it year round in enormous whiskey barrels and use it to make everything but ice cream. While silky avocado–cream cheese spread is certainly nothing new at Southern cocktail parties, when my obsessed friends decided to perk it up with a little basil, it was transformed into a modern wonder. Serve the spread with a wide assortment of crackers or toasted bagel chips.

2 large ripe avocados, peeled, seeded, and cut into chunks

3 scallions (part of green tops included), chopped

¹⁄3 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves

3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

One and one-half 8-ounce packages cream cheese, cut into pieces and softened

In a blender or food processor, blend together the avocados, scallions, parsley, basil, garlic, lime juice, and salt and pepper till smooth. Scrape the mixture down the sides, add the cream cheese, and blend 1 minute longer. Scrape the spread into an attractive serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and chill at least 1 hour or till firm.

Jezebel

Makes about 3¹⁄2 cups

I assume that this unique, fiery spread was named after the evil biblical temptress, but whatever its linguistic source, Jezebel, which has as many variations as pimento cheese and shrimp paste, seems to be indigenous to piedmont North Carolina. My sister made a wicked Jezebel, but this one, created by an old friend in Charlotte, has to be one of the best I’ve ever been served. I’ve never seen the spread even mentioned in the most comprehensive Southern cookbooks.

One 18-ounce jar pineapple preserves (or, if necessary, peach preserves)

One 10-ounce jar apple jelly

¹⁄4 cup cider vinegar

2 tablespoons prepared horseradish

1 tablespoon cracked black peppercorns

1 teaspoon dry mustard

¹⁄8 teaspoon salt

Two 8-ounce packages cream cheese

In a large bowl, combine the preserves, jelly, and vinegar and stir till well blended. Add the horseradish, peppercorns, mustard, and salt and stir till well blended. Chill the spread, covered, at least 2 hours, then spoon it over the cream cheese on two crystal serving plates or trays and serve with assorted crackers.

Shrimp Paste with Gin

Makes about 2 cups

When I told Savannah food expert Damon Lee Fowler that I was putting a little gin in my shrimp paste, he simply frowned. When I told Charleston’s major authority on Lowcountry cookery, Hoppin’ John Martin Taylor, he raged, Have you gone stark raving mad? Heaven knows what either would say if I shared my conviction that shrimp paste might be traced back to English potted shrimps! In any case, on tea tables, at formal buffets and cocktail parties, and even for breakfast, shrimp paste has to be one of the most distinctive and sublime regional creations ever devised. The spread, made locally with tiny, sweet inlet shrimp, has been around for centuries, and while it does lend itself to different seasonings, modern versions that include everything from cream cheese to mayonnaise to canned soups should be outlawed. Serve the paste on benne (sesame) crackers or toast points.

1¹⁄2 pounds fresh shrimp

¹⁄2 lemon

3 tablespoons gin

1 tablespoon minced scallions (white parts only)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

¹⁄4 teaspoon dry mustard

¹⁄8 teaspoon ground mace or nutmeg

Pinch of cayenne pepper

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Chopped fresh parsley leaves

Place the shrimp and lemon in a large saucepan with enough water to cover and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, let stand for 1 minute, and drain. When the shrimp are cool enough to handle, peel, devein, and cut them in half.

In a blender or food processor, combine the boiled shrimp, gin, scallion, lemon juice, mustard, mace (or nutmeg), and cayenne and process just long enough to chop the shrimp coarsely. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl, add the butter and salt and pepper, and mix with a wooden spoon till the shrimp mixture and butter are well blended. Pack the mixture into a crock, cover with plastic wrap, and chill at least 2 hours.

When ready to serve, sprinkle chopped parsley over the top.

Pearl’s Chicken Liver Spread

Makes about 3 cups

Although Pearl Byrd Foster operated one of the most innovative and successful restaurants in Manhattan (Mr. & Mrs. Foster’s Place) during the 1960s and 1970s, she never forgot her roots in Virginia, a fact that was reflected in dishes such as this simple spread she would whip up for private cocktail and wine receptions. What makes the spread so Southern, of course, is the cream cheese and bourbon, and if you want to give it even more flavor dimension, add a pinch or so of ground